<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Doomed From The Start by Zelan_s</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935660">Doomed From The Start</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelan_s/pseuds/Zelan_s'>Zelan_s</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stardew Valley (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Explicit Language, F/M, Separations</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:21:36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,239</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935660</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelan_s/pseuds/Zelan_s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Things used to be easy for Sam, but things are different now. He and his little brother can't have a conversation without arguing, his mom is in denial and his dad just up and left them. How could things possibly get any worse?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sam/Female Player (Stardew Valley)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The First Weekend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello, this is my second fic involving Stardew Valley characters, though the outline hasn't been written out like my previous work so I'm really just seeing how well it takes and whether I will continue this particular story.<br/>I've changed the characters a bit yet again. Vincent is in his early teen years 12-13 in this fic instead of the younger version we see in game.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span class="u"> <strong>FIRST WEEKEND</strong> </span>
</p><p>
  <strong>SAM</strong>
</p><p>The pigeons blanketing the parking lot took flight into the setting sun when we pulled up to Dad’s apartment building. I kind of envied the little flying disease bags for escaping until our uber driver killed the engine and they settled back down behind us. As though in sync, my brother and I leaned forward to peer out the windshield and get our first look at Pine Tree Apartments, aka Dad’s new home and the place we’d be forced to stay every other weekend until things settled down.</p><p>Forced wasn’t the word Vincent would use, but it was exactly how I saw the situation.</p><p>“Huh,” Vincent said, his reddish-brown brows smoothing out as my blondish ones drew closer together. “I thought it’d be worse.”</p><p>Mom’s piano teacher salary and Dad’s handyman business might have been a great combination for summers spent slowly restoring our old farmhouse, but it didn’t leave much for Dad to live on after he decided to move out last month.</p><p>Built just over a century ago, the six-story apartment building looked as if it was one bad day away from being condemned. Water stains from window AC units ran down the walls, and several windows were covered with warped and weather-beaten boards. Describing the green paint on the doorframe as peeling was like saying a tornado was a windstorm.</p><p>I could only imagine that the inside was equally inviting. No wonder the owner, an out-of-state friend of Dad’s, had been eager to trade a rent-free apartment in exchange for Dad fixing the place up.</p><p>I turned slowly to face my brother. “I think it’s perfect for him.”</p><p>Our driver turned to us and asked if we needed help with our luggage, we both declined.</p><p>Vincent pushed his door open, “We’re staying with Dad for two nights, Sam. Cut him some slack.”</p><p>Lately, I couldn’t let things go with my brother, even little things, but after the fifty-minute drive from the rural Pelican Town I’d called home to the crowded, somewhat congested outskirts of Zuzu City, I was feeling too dejected to bother.</p><p>As it was, I barely had time to grab my backpack from the trunk before Vincent slammed it shut. His massive duffel was easily five times the size of my backpack. That about summed up our respective opinions on our parents’ separation.</p><p>The full impact of our new residence—however temporary—hit me as we drew closer to the glass front doors. There was a tiny spiderweb-like crack decorating one corner, and the maroon carpet inside was worn so thin by foot-traffic paths that it looked striped. Small metal mailboxes were built into the wall on the right, and unpainted plaster covered the left.</p><p>Mom wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in here before peeling back the carpet to check for hardwood. Another ten and she’d have been chipping away at the plaster, hoping to expose brick underneath. Dad would have been right there next to her, grinning.</p><p>He should have been, only not here, there—home. With Mom.</p><p>Vincent didn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation. Then again, at thirteen, maybe he was realizing that he didn't have much to worry about. Not that he viewed the inauguration of these weekends as something to endure. He was looking forward to seeing Dad, whereas I would have sooner slept in the alley outside.</p><p>I moved past Vincent toward the elevator, but after pushing the button for a full minute, I started up the stairs. “You’re right, Vincent. This place is way better than our dry, clean, not-broken-down house, where Mom is alone right now.” Vincent rolled his eyes in that very teen gesture, I missed the days where he listened to what I said.</p><p>My backpack wasn’t nearly as heavy as Vincent’s duffel—unlike my brother, I was carrying only what I needed for the next forty-eight mandatory hours, we switched bags so it would be easier on him—it was only reluctance that weighed my steps up five flights of stairs. We stopped at the sixth floor and peered down a surprisingly wide hallway with three doors on each side. One of the light bulbs was flickering in a seizure-inducing pattern that increased my nausea at having to be there.</p><p>“Which one is it?” Vincent asked.</p><p>“Does it matter?” I answered.</p><p>Vincent checked his phone, then pointed to the middle door on the right, 6-3. He was already knocking by the time I stepped up next to him.</p><p>Each rap of his knuckles made me wince. I hadn’t seen Dad in three weeks, and that was only when he’d been packing up the rest of his stuff. He’d tried to hug me before leaving, but I’d backed away. It was his choice to leave and mine not to help him feel okay about it.</p><p>“He’s not here.” Vincent frowned at the door.</p><p>“Great. Let’s go.”</p><p>More door frowning from Vincent.</p><p>“I’m not staying if he’s not here. I’ll call Mom to come get us if I have to.”</p><p>Vincent’s head snapped to mine and he glared. “I’m so sick—”</p><p>The door to 6-5 opened, and a pretty Korean woman wearing sky blue yoga pants and a matching sports bra stepped out. “Oh, hi! You must be Vince and Sam!”</p><p>The expanse of midriff on display rendered my brother mute. I was too pissed off by the whole situation to care much. “Yeah, but we were just leaving.” I grabbed Vincent’s arm.</p><p>“Kent asked me to keep an eye out for you. He needed to pick up a few things, but he thought he’d be back by now.” She peered down the obviously deserted hallway. “Anyhoo, come on in.” She turned and called to someone in her apartment. “Em, come meet the new neighbors.”</p><p>Neither Vincent nor I moved.</p><p>“Whoops. Probably should introduce myself. I’m Shelly, I live here with my boyfriend, Robert. It’ll be so nice to have some new faces on the floor.” She laughed and popped her hip against the doorframe in a way that drew my eye despite my mood. “Those are vacant.”</p><p>She pointed at the two apartments directly across from ours. “And then the Spiegels and their new baby live on the other side of you in 6-1, but don’t worry, the baby doesn’t cry a lot. There’s a guy who lives in 6-2, but he’s not around much, and honestly, he gives me a creepy vibe. That’s mean, isn’t it? It’s just that this generally isn’t the kind of place that attracts non-creepy people.” She made a face. “I know your dad is going to fix it up, but it’s kind of a dump right now.”</p><p>She lifted a hand as if to shield her eyes from the flickering bulb. “We wouldn’t be here if Robert’s queen bitch of an ex hadn’t taken everything in the divorce, and I mean everything. The house, the cars, his sports memorabilia.” She started ticking things off on her fingers. “You wouldn’t believe what he went through just to get Em every other weekend.” Shelly shook her head. “So this is it for now. It’s better inside though. We might still have some pizza left over, I think.”</p><p>She leaned back into her apartment, and I thought Vincent was going to pass out at the rear view she presented. “Em, did you eat all the pizza? Emery?” Back in the hallway, she half rolled her eyes, then smiled. “She’s kind of a nightmare, and I’m not exactly her favorite person.”</p><p>I blinked at the sheer amount of information this complete stranger had just vomited at us. “Maybe you shouldn’t call her mother ‘queen bitch.’”</p><p>“I know, but...” Shelly shrugged. “It really suits her.” She stressed the word and laughed again. “Do you know she had their dog put down while Robert was out of town? I mean, who does that?” She leaned forward. “Just between us, she’s a drunk, too.”</p><p>I wasn’t sure that Vincent was listening as much as he was watching the way Shelly’s chest rose and fell when she took a deep breath—which she did constantly.</p><p>I leaned into Vincent while Shelly continued to grossly overshare. “You realize she’s probably wondering what size diapers you wear.”</p><p>Predictably, Vincent reacted by slamming me into the opposite wall. His nostrils flared. “I’m so sick of your crap.”</p><p>“Yeah?” I straightened up from the wall with a smile. “I’m not exactly—”</p><p>Shelly had fallen quiet as soon as Vincent pushed me, but she started up again as Dad crested the stairs behind us. “And here he is.” Her voice held a note of relief, like she expected my brother and me to fall in line at the sight of our father. Once, that would have been true.</p><p>Dad’s arms were filled with bags. Vincent went to help him; I did not.</p><p>“Thanks, Vince.” Then he stared at me. Dad looked about ten years older than the last time I’d seen him, with a scruffy half beard and more salt than pepper in his light blond hair. His normally suntanned complexion looked paler, too. But he was smiling, and that made me want to knock his teeth out. “Hi, buddy.”</p><p>“Don’t worry,” Shelly called out, drawing all eyes once again. “They only just got here. We’ve been getting to know each other. Kent, you didn’t tell me how cute your sons are. Vincent looks just like you, and I bet Sam has the sweetest smile.” She flashed an inviting grin at me, and I continued not smiling as Dad thanked her and led us inside his apartment.</p><p>That was when I discovered Shelly’s first lie: it was not nicer inside. There were two tiny bedrooms, a small eat-in kitchen, and a slightly-larger-than-the-hallway living room that barely fit a couch and TV.</p><p>“So—” Dad clapped his hands “—who wants a tour?” Vincent and I kept silent. “Guess I should save the jokes for after dinner, huh? I’ve got a lot of plans and I’m hoping you guys can help me with some of them. This building has good bones, you’ll see.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Vincent said. “We’ll help.” He tried to catch my eye but I ignored him.</p><p>Dad pointed at the closed doors on the right. “I’m giving you guys the bedrooms. One has access to the balcony and the other has slightly more space.”</p><p>“Okay then. Sam, I got a pillow for the lounge chair out there, but the balcony is probably held together by rust more than anything right now, so be careful.” He moved back to dig in one of his bags. “The lady at the store said it was fine to leave outside even in the snow—which it feels like we’re going to get early this year.”</p><p>I shut the door behind me and heard Dad’s voice trail off. The walls were paper-thin, so Dad and Vincent’s somewhat stilted conversation chased me onto the balcony. It shook but felt sturdy enough. The view was... Well, it was the side of another building.</p><p>There was an apple orchard outside my window at home</p><p>I pulled my phone out and hit Redial. Mom answered on the first ring. “Sam, sweetie?”</p><p>“Hi, Mom.”</p><p>“Oh, is it that bad?” She could tell from my two-word greeting that it was.</p><p>“No, it’s swell as long as I breathe through my mouth.”</p><p>“Two days and you’ll be home. You can do anything for two days. And Vincent’s there.” My mother lived in denial about the state of my relationship with my brother. In her mind we were still the same little boys who’d built forts together. “Your dad misses you.”</p><p>I ground my teeth together to hold in my response to that oft-repeated comment. It wouldn’t do any good to remind her that if Dad missed us, he had no one to blame but himself.</p><p>She asked me a few more carefully worded questions about Dad’s apartment. For once I was less careful with my answers.</p><p>“It’s foul, like rats-wouldn’t-live-here foul.”</p><p>Mom laughed, which was what I wanted. “So I shouldn’t tell you I just saw a deer in the backyard?”</p><p>“Can you repeat that? I couldn’t hear you over the drug bust going on below me.” I heard a snicker—not from Mom—and moved forward, following the sound to the edge of the balcony.</p><p>“I miss you so much,” Mom said, then in a softer voice, “The house is so quiet.”</p><p>“Yeah, me, too.” Distraction leaked into my voice as I leaned around the dividing wall to look into the neighbor’s balcony.</p><p>There sat a petite girl about my age with olive-toned skin and a waist-length brown braid hanging over one shoulder. She was slowly panning a bulky camera past two pigeons that were perched on the railing in front of her.</p><p>“Mom, I gotta call you back.” I hung up. “Hey,” I said, waiting until the girl turned her camera toward me and then waiting longer until she lowered it. “You could have said something or, I don’t know, gone inside.”</p><p>“Sorry,” she said, giving no indication that she meant it beyond the word itself.</p><p>She was lounging in a foldout chair with her legs thrown over one side and the bright red glow of a cigarette illuminating her free hand. I was cold in my hoodie, so she had to be freezing in her jeans and black T-shirt that read SAVE FERRIS, but she didn’t show it.</p><p>“You must be Emery.” Either that, or she was squatting on Shelly’s balcony.</p><p>She smiled. “I prefer Spawn of the Queen Bitch.”</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>EMERY</strong>
</p><p>It was kinda pretty, the way his face turned red when he realized that I’d overheard Shelly trashing my mom. One of the many perks of Pine Tree Apartments was the utter lack of privacy. “Which one are you?” I asked.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Are you Vince or Sam?” </p><p>“Sam.”</p><p>“In that case, thanks, Sam.” When his blond eyebrows drew together, I elaborated, “You told Shelly not to call my mom ‘queen bitch.’ That was nice of you.”</p><p>His eyebrows smoothed out. “Figured she might not be impartial.”</p><p>I laughed. Then I did it again. It took a lot of effort not to go for a third. “That would be a no. I mean, my mom is awful, but so’s my dad and his teenage girlfriend.”</p><p>“Wait, she’s not—”</p><p>“She was close to it when I first met her.” I mentally and physically shook myself away from that chain of thought.</p><p>Sam made a face that echoed my sentiments.</p><p>“Yeah,” I said.</p><p>“Is she for real?”</p><p>“Everything but her boobs. I’m pretty sure my dad bought those two—or was it three?—Christmases ago. I can’t remember. Wait, it was three. We couldn’t afford braces for me that year, but obviously my dad enjoys those more, so it was the right call.”</p><p>I smiled, revealing the slight gap between my front teeth. In hindsight, I liked my gap, but my dad was still a tool. “Hey, do you smoke?” I held up my cigarette.</p><p>Sam shook his head.</p><p>“That’s too bad.” I lowered it without taking a drag.</p><p>He flushed a little more. “Maybe you shouldn’t either.”</p><p>He was cute. “I don’t.” I flicked off the ash. “Shelly says the smell makes her sick and forbade me to smoke, so.” I shrugged.</p><p>“But you don’t smoke?”</p><p>I wrinkled my nose. “I tried, but I felt like throwing up afterward, and the smoke messed with my shots.” She nodded at her camera.</p><p>“Now I just let them burn and enjoy the results. Still, it’d be a lot easier if you smoked. All the stink in half the time, you know? It’s not exactly warm out here.”</p><p>He surprised me then by swinging his leg over and jumping into my balcony, sending the two pigeons flying off. Very cute, I decided.</p><p>He lifted the cigarette from my hand and took several long drags without hacking and coughing like I had. “Thought you didn’t smoke.”</p><p>It was his turn to shrug. “My mom used to. She caught me one time sneaking a cigarette from her purse, so I promised to quit if she did.”</p><p>My fingers itched to pick up my camera, but that might make him stop. When he hit the filter, he presented it to me like the diamond it was.</p><p>“And did she?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>Such a simple answer, yet the concept completely eluded me. “I’m guessing that means you won’t be my smoking buddy from now on?”</p><p>“Sorry,” he said, like he really meant it. “One time thing.”</p><p>The problem with cute boys who valiantly smoke cigarettes for you is that they tend to be distracting. In my head I was shooting the scene of him leaping to my balcony with the fading glow of daylight outlining him. I would focus on his hands clutching the railing and zoom in to show how the rust would still be stuck in patches to his fingers when he picked up my cigarette. I was leaning forward to check the angles and was therefore completely oblivious to the fact that we were about to be invaded until the balcony door slid open.</p><p>“Emery, I—” Shelley’s nose wrinkled and her gaze dropped to the cigarette butt in my hand. “Seriously? It’s like you deliberately do the things I tell you not to.”</p><p>Scene forgotten, I refrained from tapping my nose and making a bell noise, but only just. “When the sweet, seductive lure of nicotine calls, you have to answer.”</p><p>Shelly snatched up my pack and plucked the butt from my unprotesting fingers. “It makes it a lot easier not to sugarcoat things for you when pull this shi—” She broke off when she noticed Sam. “Where did you come from?” Her eyes went wide and her gaze shot to the balcony next door. “Are you out of your mind? You could have died!”</p><p>A thoroughly frigid breeze raked over us, and Shelly shivered. I looked at Sam to see if he was noticing what the cold air was doing to my dad’s not-so-little gifts. He glanced but didn’t linger. Cuter by the minute.</p><p>“Are you okay?” Shelly moved forward as if to hug him, but Sam stepped back.</p><p>“Yeah, I’d really rather you didn’t touch me.”</p><p>I grinned at him. “I’m going to like you, aren’t I?”</p><p>Shelly made a distressed noise.</p><p>“Calm down, Shelly. He’s fine. We’re fine. Feel free to go back inside where it’s warm before you put someone’s eye out with one of those things.”</p><p>Shelly did a decent Sam impersonation by going red and wrapping her arms across her chest. She took a step back. “I need you both inside right now.” I didn’t move and, much to my pleasure, Sam didn’t either.</p><p>“That’s gonna be a pass, Shel, but thanks.”</p><p>Shelly sucked her upper lip into her mouth and glanced upward. “Emery, I thought we had an agreement.”</p><p>“And what agreement was that? The one where you break into my room whenever you want?”</p><p>“I knocked. You didn’t answer. And our agreement was that you were not going to smoke here.” She made an exasperated noise. “And to think I was going to talk to your dad about helping you pay for that summer film school—”</p><p>All my muscles tightened. “What are you talking about?” But I knew. I just didn’t know how Shelly knew. I didn’t go around sharing huge personal dreams with anyone, let alone my dad’s prepubescent girlfriend who was only a few years older than me.</p><p>“The film program. They sent this huge info packet. Honestly, I almost threw it away because you never mentioned that you were expecting anything, but then I saw your name when I opened it and...”</p><p>Shelly kept going but most of me shut down so that I could silently scream in my head without externally moving a single muscle. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Sam sucking in a breath. It helped, however slightly, to have someone else register the line Shelly had crossed without even thinking about it.</p><p>“...I thought you just liked watching old movies. Is that what you’re filming all the time?” She reached for my camera, and I snatched it away with a barely repressed snarl.</p><p>I guessed, to Shelly, movies from the ’80s were old. I preferred them, because they showed me a time before my parents met and lost their minds long enough to get married and have me. You know, the good old days. But I didn’t watch only “old” movies.</p><p>“Maybe if you didn’t hide every single aspect of your life from me, I wouldn’t have to go through your mail or barge onto your balcony to know anything. I’m just—” She gritted her teeth. “I’m sick of it. I can’t control what you do at your mother’s, but over here you need to follow your dad’s rules.”</p><p>I was almost done screaming in my head. Not quite, but almost. If she’d let me finish, I’d have been able to stay silent until she left, but then she had to go and bring up my dad. “He never gave me any rules. See, he’d have to actually show up once in a while to do that.”</p><p>One of Shelly’s eye muscles twitched and her voice softened. “He’s in the middle of a really big work—”</p><p>“So, Sam, seen any good movies lately?” I don’t know if Shelly stopped talking when I interrupted her, or if I just drowned her out. I’d heard that line from her before, and I wasn’t going to listen to it again.</p><p>“We agreed that I’m in charge when you’re here, I don't care how old you are.”</p><p>Angry me rarely accomplished anything except to invite crying me to make a long, insufferable appearance. So, ignoring all instincts, I forced amusement into my voice. “I never agreed to that. What were the terms?”</p><p>Shelly’s arms snapped to her sides and her nostrils flared. “You don’t get terms when you act the way you do, you're too old to be doing this, but fine, do whatever you want. You always do.” She tossed the pack of cigarettes at me and flung an arm toward Sam’s balcony. “Please do not climb over that when you leave.” Then to me she said, “I left the film program packet on your bed. Oh, and I came out here to tell you that your dad’s not coming home tonight. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to.”</p><p>My eyes stung and the air in my lungs swelled painfully, but outwardly I didn’t react at all. Shelly closed the sliding door behind her without looking back. It took me two tries, but I managed to light another cigarette. I focused on the thin line of smoke that trailed up in front of me. Sam was staring after Shelly with a slightly agape mouth and wide eyes. “Just wait until you get yours,” I told him.</p><p>He blinked, then snapped out of his semi-horrified stupor. “Get my what?”</p><p>“Your Shelly. Or does your dad already have a girlfriend?”</p><p>“What? No. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. My parents are just separated. They aren’t even talking about divorce.”</p><p>“Since when does that matter? Shelly was in the picture long before the paperwork went through.” Christmas had been a hoot that year. Everybody knew that everybody knew, but since my mom hadn’t officially pulled the trigger yet, the holidays were in full swing at my house. This year, they were in an all-out war over who would get to celebrate the birth of our Savior with me.</p><p>“No,” Sam was saying. “It’s not like that with my parents. There weren’t any affairs or anything. I can’t imagine my dad having a girlfriend.”</p><p>“But you haven’t seen the way he looks at Shelly. Unlike you, he doesn’t back away when she tries to hug him.” Based on Sam’s expression, I was guessing he’d witnessed such an event earlier in the hall. “Or I could be wrong.” I wasn’t.</p><p>Sam was still frowning, but this time at me and not just the unpleasant idea I’d forced on him. “He’s not—you have no idea what’s going on with my family. Clearly yours is seriously messed up. Mine is...” he hesitated “...normal messed up. My dad isn’t going to start dating, and my mom isn’t some—”</p><p>“Oh, I hope you finish that sentence. Considering your entire opinion of my mother will have been formed by Shelly’s, you must have a ton of insight.” I rested my chin on my hands and blinked at him with wide, waiting eyes.</p><p>The blush that stained his neck and cheeks wasn’t nearly as cute this time. He rotated his jaw like he was physically forcing himself to say something other than what he wanted to. “Our parents aren’t the same, okay? That’s all I was trying to say.”</p><p>“Then spill. You say no one strayed, but maybe they were just good at hiding it.”</p><p>Sam looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in. It wasn’t a new experience for me, so I let it go. “What’s wrong with you? You’re messed up, you know that?”</p><p>My cigarette had burned low by then, and I was reaching my suffer-in-order-to-piss-Dad-off-via-Shelly threshold in terms of temperature. My skin was covered in goose bumps, and I was rethinking all kinds of things about Sam. The movie in my head suddenly had an ominous, horror-themed score to it. “Fine, whatever. I’m going to slink into my room, but stay, smoke the rest of my cigarettes if you want.” I nodded toward the mostly full pack. “Maybe it’ll piss off your dad, too.”</p><p>“I’ll pass. I don’t need to resort to anything so petty to punish my dad.”</p><p>I grinned in all my gap-toothed glory. “Enlighten me, oh mature one—how grown-up do you have to be to call Mommy two seconds after you get here?”</p><p>He didn’t say anything, just walked to the wall and started to scale back over to his balcony.</p><p>“Oh no. Leaving so soon? I have all these other petty things we could do together.”</p><p>Sam’s head popped back over as soon as he was in his own balcony. “Look, are you going to be around a lot?”</p><p>“Every other weekend.”</p><p>He hung his head. “Me, too.”</p><p>I didn’t bother with the fake smile. “Yippee.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Hostilities</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sam and Vincent have a small fight and Sam can't seem to understand why he's siding with his dad.<br/>Shelly tries to talk to Emery about changing their dynamic and Emery shows zero interest in doing so.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>SAM</strong>
</p><p>What. The. Holy. Hell.</p><p>I glanced down at my calloused palms, scraped raw on one side from my hasty and nearly fatal climb back to my own balcony. The railing was rough from rust along the bottom and slick from a recent rainfall on the top. Nausea, cold and stinging, had flooded me during that split second that my foot slipped and I nearly plummeted six stories to my death.</p><p>I was chilled and sweaty and my heart was more than a little jumpy, which I wanted to blame on almost falling or maybe the cigarette but couldn’t. It was all her. Emery. The things she’d said. Back in my room—the room I was staying in—I dropped onto the foot of my—the—bed and let my head fall into my hands. I felt kind of like a jerk, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to care, not with the sound of Dad and Vincent laughing in the next room.</p><p>Dad hadn’t left Mom because he wanted someone else. His reasons made him a coward, not a cheat.</p><p>I grabbed my earbuds and phone, and turned up the volume to just shy of painful so that I couldn’t hear them or myself.</p><p>I don’t know how long I lay on the bed before Vincent came in and yanked out my earbuds. “Dad wants to know if you’re going to eat.”</p><p>I started to close my eyes again, but Vincent dead-legged me. I launched myself at him, tackling him into the dresser. We hit the ground, and the next instant I was bodily lifted and flung onto the lumpy mattress.</p><p>“Enough!” Dad was between us, hands outstretched toward each son. “Since when do you guys fight like animals?”</p><p>I looked at Vincent and saw a tiny trickle of blood on his mouth. I must have elbowed him when we went down. We were both breathing hard, and he wouldn’t meet my eye.</p><p><em>Shit.</em> <em>I'm such an ass.</em></p><p>When I didn't answer, Dad turned to Vincent.</p><p>“Somebody start talking.”</p><p>“It was nothing. We were messing around.” Vincent shrugged.</p><p>I couldn’t see Dad’s face, but I doubted he bought that story. I wouldn’t have. So I was surprised when he dropped his arms and the line of questioning.</p><p>“This isn’t a great situation, for any of us. I know you guys are caught in the middle, but if you can just hang in there, we will get through it.”</p><p>“Get through it?” I asked, slowly shaking my head. “You left Mom. How exactly do you want us to get through that?”</p><p>Dad lowered his gaze, and my brother, still dabbing the bloody lip I’d given him, spoke to me in a tone that was the complete opposite of the hostile one he’d used with me earlier. “C’mon, Sam. We just got here. Can’t we just...” He trailed off, realizing, I hoped, that we couldn’t just anything. At least, I couldn’t.</p><p>“I don’t have a plan here. This isn’t what I wanted—it’s not what your mom wanted either,” Dad added when I started to rise from the bed. “It’s just the way it is for now. I’m...I’m working on it, okay?” He made a point of meeting and holding both Vincent’s and my gazes, and I wanted to pretend that I didn’t notice the moisture in his eyes. “In the meantime, can we agree not to go no-holds-barred in the apartment anymore?”</p><p>“Sure, Dad. Sorry.” Vincent clapped a hand on Dad’s arm in a gesture I was sure he thought made him seem grown-up.</p><p>“Sam?”</p><p>I was too busy staring at my brother to answer. Before—before everything, Vincent had been the one who clashed with Dad after he'd grown a little more. He’d never rolled over, not even when it would have been the smart thing to do. It was like he’d enjoyed the tension, the way Dad would get riled up. But then everything went wrong. Dad eventually moved out, Mom broke almost worse than before, and Vincent decided to stand with the wrong parent. He sided with the coward. Unlike my brother, I wasn’t going to smile and nod at Dad like I was fine with him abandoning Mom. She’d cried all morning, even as she was telling us how glad she was that we were going to see Dad. She was probably still crying, and my brother was apologizing to Dad. It was so damn crazy.</p><p>“I’m going to take that as a yes.” Dad clapped both of us on the shoulder, then headed out of the room. “Dinner’s getting cold.”</p><p>Vincent and I made the briefest eye contact before he followed Dad, and when I was alone, I let my stomach make the call and I joined them.</p><p>Dinner turned out to be takeout, some local place I’d never heard of, cheesesteaks. I think between the three of us, we ate about eight of them. Even better, talking wasn’t an option until all that was left on the breakfast bar that we were crowded around was crumpled foil and empty bags.</p><p>Vincent was the first to talk, complimenting Dad on finding a good take-out place already.</p><p>Dad launched into a story about how he’d found the place and thought they were even better than the Saloon's in Pelican. Some good-natured arguing commenced, and every word caused the food in my stomach to turn into stone.</p><p>“We’ll let Sam be the tie vote,” Dad said. “Who makes the better cheesesteak? Gus’s, or are you with me and Sonny’s?”</p><p>I looked at Dad with his overly eager expression. He was desperate for this “normal” moment with his sons. A sign, I guessed, that the three of us could get through this. It didn’t even matter which place I picked. He just wanted us to be talking again. He wasn’t delusional enough to think that everything would be perfect from then on, or that his run-down apartment was where any of us would choose to be, but it was like our future hinged on this moment.</p><p>While Mom was more alone than she should ever have to be.</p><p>“I think they both taste like crap.” Then I jumped off my stool and disappeared into the room I’d be sleeping in every other weekend for the foreseeable future.</p><p>The last thing I did was send a text to Mom: Heading to bed. Will call tomorrow. Love you.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>EMERY</strong>
</p><p>Shelly made a show of covering her mouth and nose when I reemerged from my bedroom. I didn’t bother pointing out that I’d showered. I thought my wet hair was enough of an indicator, but then again, this was the woman who, the day she’d moved in with my dad, had told me—with a straight face—that she wanted me to think of her like a sister. I’m sure I peed a little laughing, which hadn’t gone over well with my wannabe sis.</p><p>I decided not to bring up the fact that she’d opened my mail. I figured that one was on me for having something important sent here in the first place. But if I’d had the film program info sent to Mom’s house and she’d found it, I’d have suffered a lot more from that than I had on the balcony with Shelly. Mom would have cared too much, and I figured Dad wouldn’t care at all. That was my life in a nutshell.</p><p>Anyway, I had the info now, and there was at least a semi-decent chance that Shelly wouldn’t bring it up again. Besides, if I exhausted all my other options—and I would—and still had to go to Dad for the tuition, I’d be the one to do it, not Shelly. I’d sooner sleep with a rat in my bed.</p><p>Vermin aside, I’d intended to grab something from the kitchen and spend the rest of the evening in my room going through the film program application, but seeing Shelly’s scrunched-up face in response to my nonexistent cigarette smell made me shift directions. I settled on the sofa and stretched out my legs.</p><p>This was a game we played, Shelly and me. There was only one unspoken rule: when I entered a room, she left; when she entered a room, I left. We’d been playing for a while now and I saw no reason to change things, but every so often, Shelly would try. I could tell just by the way she was breathing—deep and through her nose—that this was one of those times.</p><p>“I’m sorry I had to do that in front of your friend.”</p><p>“Hmm?” It was harder to tune her out when she moved to perch on the opposite arm of the couch.</p><p>“I figure if we both start treating each other with more respect, things will go a lot easier.”</p><p><em>Hearing Shelly talk about respect was like hearing an atheist talk about God</em>. “You mean the respect that you didn’t show me just now on the balcony? Or when you went through my mail? Or earlier in the hall, when you trashed my mom to complete strangers? That kind of respect?”</p><p>“I’m trying to apologize here.”</p><p>I let my silence speak for itself.</p><p>It had taken me a while to figure out Shelly once she’d grafted herself onto our lives. She wasn’t a gold-digging home wrecker siphoning life and money out of my dad; she was worse. She thought she loved him, and the cherry on the deluded sundae? She thought he loved her. I don’t know, maybe he had at first. But that was the thing with my dad: he could be so charming. I guess that was what made him such a good salesman. He’d sell something so hard that I think he sort of had to believe it himself. When they’d first gotten together, Shelly must have seemed like a ray of sunshine in his otherwise gloomy life. Always smiling and praising him, never complaining about the hours he worked or the way his hair was thinning. I’m sure she made him feel like a man when, for his whole life, he’d felt like anything but. And in return, he’d lavished her with gifts and trips until her head spun so much that she didn’t have to think about the wife and daughter he already had.</p><p>Now Shelly was stuck in the lackluster apartment where he’d stashed her—and me—enduring his eighty-hour workweeks and two-plus years of broken promises, including the as-yet-to-appear—and realistically never would—engagement ring.</p><p>I guess you could say that Shelly’s happily-ever-after hadn’t turned out as she’d hoped, and the fallout had been extreme. Every weekend that she got saddled with me was a fresh reminder of the lives she’d helped destroy. If I was being charitable, maybe I could chalk up her not leaving my dad to guilt in addition to reckless stupidity, but regardless, Shelly brought out the worst in me.</p><p>Her shoulders slumped. “Fine. I don’t even know why I try with you.”</p><p>“Yeah, your life is super hard.”</p><p>“But that’s just it. It doesn’t have to be.” Shelly moved to the coffee table in front of me. “Aren’t you tired of playing the bratty daughter? ’Cause I gotta tell you, I’m tired of being on the receiving end.”</p><p>“What can I say? You inspire me.”</p><p>Shelly made a half-aborted gesture to touch my hair. “I still remember what you were like before.” A ghost of a smile. “You used to let me braid your hair and ask me to teach you new yoga poses. We were friends. I know you remember.”</p><p>I couldn’t forget. When she’d started working for my parents as their personal at-home trainer, Shelly had been like a granted wish I didn’t know I’d made. She was energetic and friendly and so pretty. Unlike my parents, who always seemed to be embroiled in some pressing task that required Shelly to hang around waiting for them, Shelly would ignore her phone and focus entirely on me. She’d do my hair and tell me about college and how the guys she went out with were so immature. More than that, she’d ask about my day and my life, and listen like it mattered.</p><p>The shift had been so subtle that my fifteen-year-old brain hadn’t caught it. She’d gone from asking about soccer practice to coaxing details from me about the caustic relationship between my parents and commiserating with me once I spilled. By the time I’d realized what was going on, it was too late. Dad started meeting Shelly at his office, and Mom, not to be outdone, upgraded to a full-time fitness coach named Hugh who worked her out in ways it was illegal to pay for outside Las Vegas. Three months later, papers were filed, lawyers went to war, and Mom began a passionate affair with Jack Daniels.</p><p>And Shelly couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t let her braid my hair?</p><p>It took everything I had to not flinch from her. I wasn’t fifteen anymore, I viewed her past friendship with me like the stain it was, and I wasn’t about to alleviate her occasional pangs of conscience by pretending otherwise.</p><p>I locked eyes with her. “I remember everything.”</p><p>Shelly nodded at me, once, twice, and dropped her hand to her thigh. “Okay. I get it. You hate me. I might hate me, too, except I think I might be smarter about it.”</p><p>I raised an eyebrow at that.</p><p>“I put up with a lot, and not just from you and your mom.”</p><p>I propped up my head on my arm and raised an eyebrow. “Oh no. Don’t tell me there’s trouble in paradise?”</p><p>“You’re trying to get slapped, aren’t you?”</p><p>My other eyebrow rose. For all her talk—and with Shelly there was always a lot of talk—she’d never once threatened me. I hadn’t thought she had it in her. I once saw my mom throw her out of the house by her hair, and all Shelly had done was cry. Was there an actual spine hiding behind the Barbie-doll facade?</p><p>I suppose the proper reaction to someone threatening to hit you would be fear, but Shelly wasn’t the kind to inspire anything. She had maybe ten pounds on me—not counting her boobs—and not even as many years. I had friends with siblings older than she was.</p><p>I think Shelly realized that her scare tactic had been a bust. She sighed. “Things are going to change around here. I promise you that.”</p><p>“Sure they are.” I successfully fished the remote out from under the cushion and gestured for her to stop blocking my view. She didn’t move.</p><p>“I know you think I’m temporary, but one of us is sorely mistaken.”</p><p>I turned on the TV and leaned so that I could focus on the screen. “You don’t really think he’s going to marry you, do you?”</p><p>Shelly shot to her feet and held up a not-quite-steady hand. “Why does he want you here? Did you ever think about that?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Unlike your new friend next door, your dad wasn’t here for you, was he? It’s the weekend, and he’s choosing to be at work. Again.”</p><p>I gripped the remote tight enough to turn my knuckles white, but I kept my voice flat. “That’s one of the many fundamental differences between us. I know I’m here because my dad enjoys taking things from my mom, even things he doesn’t want.” I felt my own eye muscle twitch at that admission, convinced of it as I was. I couldn’t fully embrace the indifference I tried to show Shelly. I gave her the kind of smile usually reserved for videos of cats failing to jump over things. “You’re here because my dad thinks paying for sex is gauche.”</p><p>I think Shelly would have slapped me if she’d been within striking distance. Instead, she looked at me with tear-filled eyes, then strode purposefully into the room she shared with my dad. She slammed the door so hard that one of the pictures on the wall crashed to the floor.</p><p>I left it there.</p><p>Grabbing the nearest pillow, I found a Full House marathon and spent the rest of the evening in magical TV land. Or I tried. I maybe should have picked a show where the family more closely resembled my own. Something on Animal Planet, where the father left and the mother ate her young.</p><p>I clutched that pillow tight enough to burst it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm still unsure if I should keep the two POV simply because it's something I've already done or if I should stick to a single narrative. <br/>Well I hope you enjoy this short chapter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. No Man's Land</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sam phones his mom and word vomits about Emery.<br/>Emery is asked a favor by Sam.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>SAM</strong>
</p><p>I knew something was wrong the minute I woke up. It was a cacophony of little things that combined into that overwhelming roar of wrongness, like when you rent shoes at a bowling alley. Even before I opened my eyes, I felt the scratchy stiffness of my sheets when I shifted. The sound was wrong, too. No birds. Instead there was a muffled rush of traffic spilling past and the occasional blare of a horn. Then there was a clicking noise, followed by a deep, groaning wheeze as warm air gushed into the room. The wrongness didn’t dissipate when I opened my eyes, but comprehension sharpened its edges.</p><p>Thin drapes the color of rust hung over the sliding balcony doors and let the gloomy September light show me much more of the room than I cared to see. Last night I hadn’t turned on the lamp, preferring instead to let the shadows conceal details I detested on principle.</p><p>Dad had only just moved in himself and had the entire building to fix up, so it wasn’t like I’d expected him to have decorated the place, but the spartan, thrift-store furniture wasn’t helping my unease. The showstopper was the print that hung over the bed. It was an apple orchard. I wondered if Dad had hung it on purpose, or if it came with the apartment. Either way, the mockery of it drove me from my bed as though I’d been doused with water.</p><p>At home, I could have looked out the window and seen real apple trees and breathed in crisp, slightly sweet air. There wouldn’t have been the sound of one car assaulting my ears, let alone hundreds.</p><p>Had it been only yesterday? Last night, really? I sat on the bed with my back to the orchard print and fished my phone out of my jeans from the floor. It rang twice before she answered.</p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>“Mom, your phone shows my face and name when I call.”</p><p>She laughed, but it sounded relieved more than anything. “I know, but what if someone else had your phone?”</p><p>“Like if someone stole it? Why would they call my mom?”</p><p>“Not a thief then, but a Good Samaritan. Or maybe Vincent.”</p><p>“Vincent has his own phone, and I doubt there’s a good anything within twenty square blocks of this apartment.” I thought of Emery and Shelly. There was a pause while Mom tried to figure out how to respond to my antipathy. I yawned audibly. “I’m just tired. The mattresses over here are sacks filled with old laundry.”</p><p>Another pause.</p><p>“That’s a joke, Mom.”</p><p>More shaky laughter. She must have had a worse night than I had. “I can’t always tell when you’re teasing me.”</p><p>“All right.” I stood up and stretched my back. “No more jokes. You okay? Did you sleep a little?”</p><p>“Oh, sure.” She forced an overly bright note into her voice. “Just whipping up breakfast for one.”</p><p>I imagined her standing in the kitchen with one hand clenching the counter in a death grip. She’d probably been up for hours. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d repainted half the house or something.</p><p>“What about you? You have an okay time with your dad last night?”</p><p>I thought about how to answer a question I knew it had practically killed her to ask. Anything I said would hurt her. She’d feel more alone if I told her it was good, and she’d blame herself if I told her the truth. So, in a flash of brilliance or insanity, I told her the only other thing I could think of. “I met a girl.”</p><p>“You what?” Finally an unguarded response.</p><p>“She lives in the building, the apartment next door actually.”</p><p>“Wait, wait, wait.” I heard something clinking. “Let me get my coffee, and then I want to hear everything. What’s her name?”</p><p>I smiled in relief. Mom sounded like Mom for the first time in longer than I liked to think about. “Emery.”</p><p>“Emery huh? She's about your age too?”</p><p>“I think so, she’s a really pretty girl,” I said, realizing for the first time that it was true, objectively if nothing else. “She has a great smile with this little gap between her front teeth and a twisted sense of humor, but I kind of like that.” I found myself telling Mom about Emery—what I knew at any rate—and carefully omitting details that would not have added to the picture I was painting. When I was done, even I could see how I would have been crushing on this girl if things had gone a little differently.</p><p>“What did I tell you?” Mom said. “I knew you’d find something to like. When will you see her again?”</p><p>“Um. I don’t know. We only just met.”</p><p>“Oh, of course, but it’s nice, you know? Vincent won’t talk to me about girls and—well, it’s just nice.”</p><p>I felt that old-but-never-gone sadness flare up at the way her voice had thickened. I tried not to let mine do the same. “I promise to keep talking to you about her. I’ll try to see her again today.”</p><p>“Maybe you can get a picture of her,” Mom said, and then added, “She doesn’t even have to know you’re taking it.”</p><p>“Mom, that’s called stalking, and most girls don’t like it.”</p><p>“You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”</p><p>“Yes, but I’m still not taking pictures of unassuming girls for you.” </p><p>“My funny boy. You’re just making me miss you more.”</p><p>“More than Vincent. Not much of a compliment.”</p><p>“I miss you both the same.”</p><p>I rolled my eyes, but the effect was lost on the phone. “Right. Did he even call you yet?”</p><p>“He will. He’s probably still asleep.”</p><p>“I can fix that.” I lowered the phone and distantly heard Mom telling me not to wake my brother as I headed to the other room to do exactly that.</p><p>The blanketed lump on the couch showed me Dad was still asleep. Once in the other still-darkened room, I not so gently shoved my lousy brother over. “Get up and talk to Mom.” I left off the word I wanted to call him, since Mom would have heard.</p><p>“Sam, what the—” not-Vincent said. Dad was blinking up at me. “What’s wrong with your mom?” He moved quicker than I did, seizing my phone before I thought to correct him. “Jodi? Are you all right?”</p><p>And then I had to listen to Mom’s muffled explanation that I was supposed to be giving the phone to Vincent. It got more awkward when Dad explained that, after I’d gone to bed, he and Vincent decided to change the sleeping arrangements. The conversation itself wasn’t the problem; it was listening to my parents talk as though they were strangers that hurt. Dad, with his husky sleep voice that he kept trying to mask, and Mom with her painful over-politeness. These were not people who’d been married for twenty years. Who had kids together. The strained how are yous that they exchanged before hanging up made it worse.</p><p>“Sorry,” I said when Dad handed my phone back.</p><p>“Might want to rethink your wake-up call.”</p><p>“I thought you were Vince.”</p><p>“He offered to take the couch.”</p><p>“Yeah. I got that,” I said, ending the longest conversation Dad and I had had in weeks. I left him to get up or go back to sleep or whatever. Vincent was sitting up on the couch and scratching himself when I walked through the living room/hall.</p><p>“What was that about?”</p><p>“It’s about you being a brat,” I said. “Call Mom.”</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>EMERY</strong>
</p><p>The doorbell rang as I was looking over the footage I’d shot on the balcony yesterday and trying to decide if the poor lighting was a cool stylistic feature or if I’d ruined the shot. I was about to hit Pause on my laptop when those last few seconds, the ones of Sam peering at me from his balcony, began playing. The fading sunlight lit only half his face, revealing a slight pinch between his brows that said he was curious despite his annoyance. </p><p>The lighting, I decided, had been perfect.</p><p>With a sigh, I went to answer the door. It was way too soon for the Chinese food I’d ordered, unless they had a time machine. I didn’t really expect it to be my lunch when I opened my door, but nearly as surprising as time-traveling delivery guys was the person actually standing there.</p><p>“Come to bum a smoke?” I asked.</p><p>Sam started to blush, and unlike the night before, I didn’t find the muddled red color marching up his neck to be that appealing. “I have a favor to ask.”</p><p>I leaned my shoulder into the doorframe. “Yeah, no. You were a punk yesterday, so I’m not inclined to do much of anything for you.”</p><p>“You owe me,” he said, his blush continuing to spread until his ears glowed pink. “For the cigarette.”</p><p>“Wrong. Try again. No one forced you jump onto my balcony and take that cigarette from my hand. I certainly didn’t make you smoke it.”</p><p>“Seriously?”</p><p>“Yes, seriously. What do you even want anyway?” I asked, curiosity winning out over the smug superiority I was feigning. Sam’s lips thinned, and my interest rose. He was not at all excited about what he was going to ask me.</p><p>“I need to take a picture of you.”</p><p>My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”</p><p>Sam was looking everywhere but at me.</p><p>“What kind of picture?”</p><p>“A normal picture.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>I hadn’t thought he could get any redder, but he did. “It’s for my mom.”</p><p>“I don’t even know what that means, but forget it.” I started to close my door, but Sam caught it.</p><p>“Look, I’m not trying to be creepy—”</p><p>“Well, you totally are, so let go of my door.”</p><p>“I’ll do something for you in exchange. I’ll smoke as many cigarettes as you want, whatever.”</p><p>Our tug-of-war with my door halted. He was serious. His hazel eyes were focused on mine, and even though he wasn’t really preventing me from jerking my door free if I wanted, he was desperate. For a picture of me. My skin prickled. “Fine, I’m listening.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>When I nodded, he let go of the door. So trusting. I was tempted to slam it in his face as a learning experience. I didn’t though. My cigarettes weren’t going to smoke themselves.</p><p>“I told you last night that my parents were separated—”</p><p>“You told me many things last night.”</p><p>“And I’m going to apologize about most of those things, just let me get this out.”</p><p>I could have told him that leading with an apology when you wanted something was always a better idea but I waved him on.</p><p>“My mom likes to pretend that she’s fine—both my parents do—but it kills her that we’re here. She’s not great with being alone.” He swallowed, and I wondered for a minute if he was going to tear up. The prospect made me step back. I couldn’t imagine feeling my mother’s pain so keenly that it became my pain, too. “I think she’s worried that Vincent and I are going to pull away from her, too, and decide we like it better over here with our dad.” He shook his head like the idea was ludicrous.</p><p>I crossed my arms. “Sounds like you need to send her a picture of your apartment.” No one would willingly spend time at Pine Tree unless they were forced to.</p><p>“It’s more than convincing her I want to stay with her,” Sam said. “She can’t think I’m miserable over here either, or she’ll feel worse and blame herself for putting me through it. I don’t want to her upset if I can help it.”</p><p>Now I was getting pissed. My skin was still prickling but it was growing hot. This was heading into “Gift of the Magi” territory, and I could already feel something rising in my throat. “Get to the point of the picture, Sam.” </p><p>“I told her I met a girl. You.”</p><p>“You did meet a girl. Me.” I was being deliberately obtuse, but it seemed only fair to make him suffer a little while his parents both fought over him because they actually wanted to see him. The rising bile lodged itself in my throat and burned before I could push it—and the thought that caused it—down again.</p><p>“I led her to believe that things went a little better between us than they actually did.”</p><p>“You mean you didn’t tell her about calling my family messed up and denouncing my pettiness?” I wagged my finger at him. “You shouldn’t lie to your mother, Sam.”</p><p>“Thank you for the morality lesson. The point is I told her about the girl in the apartment next door, and it made her happy. I like making her happy, and it will make her really happy if I show her a picture of you.”</p><p>“Why me? Why not find a picture of a girl online and tell her it’s me?” Then I rolled my eyes at his nonverbal reaction. “Do you have a condition? You blush a lot.” Of course my comment only made him redder.</p><p>“You’re...unique-looking.”</p><p>Ah, so he had tried to find a random girl online. I swished my waist-length braid over one shoulder in a dramatic flourish. “Beauty is its own punishment sometimes. I’m constantly told I could be a model if I were taller and had a different face and body.” When he didn’t so much as crack a smile, I dropped my arms with a sigh. “I believe I was offered an apology.”</p><p>That same uncomfortable look thinned his mouth again. Apparently, apologizing ranked up there with asking for favors. “I don’t know anything about your family, so I was wrong to make assumptions about them.”</p><p>We both stared at each other for several seconds.</p><p>“That’s it?” I asked. “Do you ever get in trouble?”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Forget it. You obviously don’t, because you suck at apologizing. You should have just told me you were sorry that I was offended. That way you take no responsibility.”</p><p>He waited for me to say something else and when I didn’t, his nostrils flared and he turned to walk away, obviously deciding that putting up with me wasn’t worth his mother’s happiness.</p><p>I tried to remember how I’d felt when my family first imploded. A volatile mix between fragility and... Nope, it was all fragility back then. The thick skin I’d had to develop over bitter accusations, and even uglier admissions until I found that indifference served me much better than the hot and cold emotions ever had. </p><p>Sam was clearly in the kill-all-humans stage of the process, so pushing his buttons the night before probably hadn’t been the wisest course of action on my part. And to be fair, I didn’t know anything about his family either.</p><p>If I let him storm off, I’d be stuck alone until Shelly came back, and that was reason enough to call out to him. Or it should have been, except there was an uneasy sloshing in my stomach reminding me that he wasn’t the only one who’d overstepped last night. “Look, I’m sorry, too, okay, for the crack about your dad getting a girlfriend.” I shifted my jaw to one side and willed my insides to settle. I sucked at apologizing, too. “Just take your picture already.”</p><p>Sam stopped but didn’t come back.</p><p>It nagged at me, how quickly he’d managed to reverse our situations. I was the one apologizing to him. “Will it help if I promise to be nicer in the future?” At least I could try. I was always trying.</p><p>Sam did come back, if somewhat reluctantly.</p><p>“And maybe we should avoid talking about our parents,” I said.</p><p>“Fine by me.”</p><p>“So are we gonna do this thing?”</p><p>His phone was out in a second, and his thumb hovered over the screen. He didn’t take a picture.</p><p>“Could we go outside or something?” He looked around, gaze snagging on the flickering light bulb a few yards away. “It’s...”</p><p>“Super bleak and depressing in this hallway?”</p><p>“Yes,” he said. “Exactly.”</p><p>As if I had any more promising offers in my dad’s equally bleak and depressing apartment. “Can you drive?”</p><p>“Don't have a car”</p><p>“Oh. Okay, then we’re on foot. There’s a good cheesesteak place a couple blocks—” I started to point, but he cut me off.</p><p>“We can just find the nearest tree or something.”</p><p>I shrugged. “It’s your photo. Let me grab a jacket.”</p><p>I snagged my camera, too, and followed him to the stairwell. We played the quiet game the whole way down; me because all the things that I thought of saying were probably not, strictly speaking, in the nice category. I was going to have to watch myself around Sam. He, on the other hand, seemed to have the nice thing on autopilot. He even opened the front door for me.</p><p>
  <em>Weirdo.</em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for reading this chapter I know it seems like the story is going rather slowly, I apologize it will pick up soon.</p><p>I would also like to recommend another Stardew Fic<br/>“Maybe, Probably” by: Cheechyaki<br/>I'm highkey in love with the way they're writing the story.<br/>Their latest chapter titled fireworks gave me really wonderful visuals and I fell for the farmers budding relationships.<br/>Please go and check it out!<br/>Again thank you for reading.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Picture</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sam wishes he had taken more caution when she'd snapped that picture but it was a little too late.<br/>With that he ends his weekend with his dad and returns home to Pelican Town.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>SAM</strong>
</p><p>For a place called Pine Tree, there were surprisingly few pine trees on the property. Dad had mentioned something over dinner the night before about landscaping plans but that the building itself had to come first.</p><p>We found a tree half a block away, and Emery kicked it and turned to face me. “What’s my motivation?”</p><p>“What?” I asked.</p><p>“Forget it. Is this fine?” She leaned against the oak tree and <span class="IL_AD">dipped</span> her head a little to one side. When she smiled, her gap showed, and I kinda liked that she didn’t try to hide it.</p><p>I lifted my phone and took the picture.</p><p>“Here, let me see.” She pressed into my side and I inhaled the soft scent of honeysuckle from her hair as she peered around my shoulder at my phone. “Did you close your eyes while taking this?”</p><p>“What?” I felt like I was saying that a lot around her. “No.”</p><p>“That’s like the worst photo anyone has ever taken of me.” She took my phone and held it out in front of us. “Smile.” I heard a click. “There. Much better. See how it doesn’t look like I only have one eye in this one? Wow, we actually look good together. Huh.”</p><p>She tilted the phone so I could see the picture. Of the two of us. She’d taken it so quickly that I hadn’t really had time to feel uncomfortable. When she’d pressed into my side, she’d smelled sort of sweet and sort of like the tree she’d leaned against. So in the picture, she was smiling and I was looking at her with an unguarded expression. “Yeah, I can’t send that to my mom.”</p><p>“Why not?” She pulled the <span class="IL_AD">phone</span> back to study the <span class="IL_AD">picture</span>.</p><p>“Right now, you’re just a cute girl I met. If she sees that, you’re suddenly this girl I’m taking <span class="IL_AD">pictures</span> with and—what are you doing?” She was doing something with my phone.</p><p>“Sending the picture to your mom. I’m assuming she’s the contact marked ‘Mom.’ Wow, you call her a lot.”</p><p>I ripped my phone away from her, but I heard the send swish sound. “Why did you do that?”</p><p>“You said you wanted to make your mom happy. That’s the picture that will make her happy. I mean, look at it. How cute am I, and how cute are you noticing how cute I am?”</p><p>“Right. Thanks,” I said in a clipped tone. The delivered note displayed by the text mocked me while I started trying to figure out how to explain the picture to Mom and defuse the situation. I shoved my phone back in my pocket. “I’ll see you.” I started back down the street. I made it like two steps before Emery pulled me to a stop.</p><p>“Pissy much? It’s just a <span class="IL_AD">photo</span>. It’s not like I was licking your face or anything.”</p><p>“You don’t get it.” I tried to shake her off, gently at first, but with a little more force when she persistently hung on. “Can I have my arm back?”</p><p>“So you can storm back to your apartment? No.”</p><p>I raised my eyebrows at her as if to say, Are you serious? In response she raised her own eyebrows.</p><p>“Get over yourself for two seconds and explain why you’re all butthurt that I sent that innocent picture of us to your mom.”</p><p>“Of us,” I said, relaxing my arm so that she might follow suit. “She’ll think you’re more than just the girl next door.”</p><p>“Are you saying I’m not?”</p><p>I felt my face heat. “I appreciate the photo, but that picture. . . It was supposed to be of you, not us. You were just supposed to be a distraction so she wouldn’t dwell on the fact that she was alone in our house for the first time since—” I swallowed, feeling needles behind my eyes. I puffed out a breath, focusing on the <span class="IL_AD">chilly</span> air when I refilled my lungs until I got myself together. “This is way more than that now, or it’s going to look that way to her.” I pulled out my phone again and brought up the picture. “You really don’t see the problem?”</p><p>Her eyebrows drew together and she tugged on her bottom lip, studying me, not even glancing at the phone. “You’re saying I should have licked your face?” Then she laughed when my jaw tightened. “Wow, you’re uptight. I’m kidding. And yes, I see your probably too-anal point.” At last she dropped my arm. “So you’re in a pickle, and it’s my fault.” She eyed me sideways for confirmation. I folded my arms. “Honestly, I think you’re taking a much too narrow view of all this. You want to distract your mom. Great. Cute girl next door—” she pointed to herself and gave a little curtsy “—in and of herself is good for, what, two weekends of distraction, maybe three? What happens when the novelty of my mere <span class="IL_AD">existence</span> wears off? Granted, I am awesome and very cute, so maybe you eke out four weekends, but even I have my limits. So what’s your plan after that?”</p><p>She barely paused before continuing. “See, this is why you need me for more than my off-the-charts photogenic properties. Me alone, I have a limited shelf life. Me and you—” she bounced her palm between our chests “—us, why, the sky is the limit.” She leaned into my side and waved her hand across the sky as though arcing an invisible banner above us. I was smelling her hair like a complete psycho so I jerked away, feeling my face flush.</p><p>When I just stared at her <span class="IL_AD">fake</span> sky banner, she dropped the showman facade. “Look, all I’m saying is that maybe I did you a favor. If your mom is really having a rough time, then the idea of a reciprocated <span class="IL_AD">crush</span> is going to do a lot more for her than your one-sided one. You wanted to give her a picture. Instead, you gave her a <span class="IL_AD">story</span>.”</p><p>I couldn’t help but consider the potential upside when she put it like that. Things were only going to get harder for Mom as Vincent and I spent more weekends away. Maybe that picture wasn’t such a bad thing.</p><p>Emery smiled wide when she knew she had me.</p><p>“Yeah, okay. Thanks, I think.”</p><p>“Oh, but I am not done with my benevolent acts for the day.”</p><p>I started to object when she pulled out her camera and pointed it at me, but <span class="IL_AD">fair</span> was fair, so I let her film me, then her, then us, talking and framing her shots all the while.</p><p>“Even though you offered, I decided that giving you lung cancer just so I can piss off my dad and Shelly is perhaps a tad on the petty side.”</p><p>I laughed. It startled me. “I didn’t really mean the petty thing. And I get it. Having met Shelly, I get it. But yeah, that’s good.”</p><p>She angled her head to the side of her camera, and I watched her chew her lip before a sudden grin forced her to stop. “You’re actually kinda sweet, Sam.” When my face heated, she moved back to my side and held the camera out in front of us. “And look at me being all nice.”</p><p>My mouth kicked up on one side and I gestured at the camera. “Are you one of those post-every-second-of-my-life-on-social-media types?”</p><p>“No, I’m one of those capture-the-moments-so-I-can-tell-the-story-I-want types, aka a filmmaker.”</p><p>“Right,” I said, remembering Shelly mentioning something about a film school program the night before. “So you make movies?”</p><p>“I make great movies. Just short ones so far, and nothing scripted—more slice-of-life type stuff—but full-length feature films are my future.” With a sigh she lowered her camera. “Real but better, because I get to control the outcome, cut out what I don’t like and frame the rest the way I want.”</p><p>“Wow, that’s cool.” Because it was, but also somehow sad. I gestured with my phone. “And thanks again. For being nice, and not just to me.”</p><p>“The famous mother. Tell me something, why do you care so much about making her happy?”</p><p>“Besides the fact that she’s my mom?”</p><p>Emery nodded, scrutinizing me in a way that made my answer more transparent than I intended.</p><p>“She thinks all of this—our split-up family—is her fault. It’s not. My dad is the one who walked out.” I closed my eyes, thinking about that morning he’d left and wishing I’d done more. “She hasn’t been happy in a really long time, and more than anything, I want that for her.”</p><p>Emery’s sigh brought my attention back to her. “I want to preface this by saying I’m still trying to be nice here. Try not to take it personally if you can’t make your mom happy.”</p><p>
  <strong>End Of Weekend ONE.</strong>
</p><p>I waited in the Uber while Vincent and Dad hugged goodbye, opting out of any farewell beyond a single uttered word: bye. As a result, Vincent and I didn’t talk on the way <span class="IL_AD">home</span>. It was a thirty-minute drive, so the silence took considerable effort from both of us.</p><p>When we turned off the main road, and even with my eyes shut, the crunching sound accompanied by the vibration of the Uber car let me know I was almost home. The graveled road stretched for a half mile before our house came into view and Mom came dashing down the porch, her waist-length hair fluffing out around her fair-skinned face.</p><p>I let Mom hug me as tightly as she needed. Vincent was next, obediently hugging her and then kissing her cheek as directed. She clung to both of our hands and drank us in with eyes that were a little too red-rimmed to completely sell the smile she wore.</p><p>“You’re taller. I swear both of you are taller.”</p><p>“Don’t go giving Vincent ideas, Mom. Short people are just as good as the rest of us.”</p><p>Vince swore at me, right in front of Mom, but she didn’t reprimand him. That, more than anything, killed the fight always simmering between the two of us.</p><p>“Who’s hungry? I made fried chicken, and there’s apple pie for dessert.” We both responded eagerly and let her precede us into the house. We exchanged a glance. No smiles or mouthed words, but I knew that we’d both do everything we could to make her forget that she’d been alone all weekend. Vincent wasn’t inclined to place blame on either of our parents, and right then, being half-right was all I needed from him.</p><p>An hour later, Mom pretended to be horrified when Vincent and I polished off the entire pie.</p><p>“Got <span class="IL_AD">any more</span>?” I asked. She really did look horrified then, but probably more out of self-recrimination that she should have made a second pie just in case. “Mom, I’m kidding. I’m seriously on the verge of throwing up.” No joke. I would have stopped after two pieces, but when Vincent had gone back for thirds, my inferiority complex kicked in.</p><p>“I can make another one.” She started to push back from the table, but I stopped her with a hand on her wrist.</p><p>“Mom. Sit. It wasn’t even that good.”</p><p>Mom exhaled but it turned into a laugh. “I know you’re teasing me, because you ate the whole thing.”</p><p>“That last piece was pure pity. Awful pie. I mean, I feel bad for the apples.”</p><p>More laughter from Mom, and each sound was better than the last.</p><p>“I liked it,” Vince said, and Mom leaned over to pat his hand.</p><p>“Thank you, sweetie.”</p><p>She tried to shoo us to go unpack while she did the dishes, but I lingered until Vincent left. “Mom?”</p><p>She was standing at the sink, rinsing plates and loading the dishwasher. She looked at me over her shoulder. “Change your mind about the pie?”</p><p>I took a newly rinsed plate from her and put it in the dishwasher. “I’m glad to be home is all.”</p><p>She kept running another plate round and round in her hands under the faucet. “Me, too. I—I didn’t think it would be this hard. How many mothers would love to have their house to themselves for a few days? I’ll be better next time. I’ll plan some things, and it’ll go by faster.” She nodded at me and finally relinquished the plate. “Your dad okay?”</p><p>“Fine, I guess.” I could have added that I didn’t really know, because we’d barely spoken the whole weekend, but she’d find a way to feel guilty about that. Instead, I brought up the subject that had served me so well last time I needed to cheer her up. “Did you get the <span class="IL_AD">picture</span>?”</p><p>“Is that what that was? My <span class="IL_AD">phone</span> made a chirping noise and I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do.” Mom had been slow to embrace technology even as an adult. She wiped her hands dry on a towel and retrieved her purse from the other room. When she handed over her phone, she was already smiling.</p><p>“Before you get any ideas, please remember that I just met this girl.”</p><p>“Sam, I know.” She tried to sound <span class="IL_AD">calm</span>, but she was practically bouncing up and down on her toes, which ruined the effect. This was either going to be the smartest or dumbest thing I’d ever done. Thinking about Emery, I decided it was probably both.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I'm sorry for the slow update, this month has been a bit hectic for me but I have been trying to keep up with my writing.<br/>I'm working on a new fic hopefully I'll have that up in a little bit.<br/>Thank you for reading and I hope everyone is staying safe and is healthy!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>